In Weick’s second book Sensemaking in Organisations he introduces the reader to ‘thrownness’ (p.44) which comes from Heidegger (dasein). Weick was such an extensive researcher and drew many of his ideas and thoughts from social psychology, phenomenology, existentialism and eastern wisdom.

His discussion of thrownness is here:

The idea of being thrown into the unexpected is what life is about. There is no drift into failure, we are always in fallibility, vulnerability and mortality. If error surfaces, then it’s just a fact of fallible life. The idea of ‘drift into failure’ opens up all avenues for blame and being ‘lost’, ‘aimless’, lacking purpose and control. That is not how we live. That is not how we organise.

You can read about thrownness (geworfen) here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrownness

Life is arbitrary, random and ambiguous. Our being is full of uncertainty and faith.

Recently, I was asked by friends to meet up in a country town for lunch, we had not seen them for some time. The meeting was in a country town was half-way between.

We had lunch which was delightful but, on the way home a truck threw up a large stone that hit our windscreen, leaving a chip about 4 cm in size.

We were able to drive home but the chip was right in the middle of the driver’s side. So, next day I rang the shop that fixes and repairs glass and they were able to give me an appointment that day. The workshop was 30 minutes away, the time of repair was two hours and so three hours of the day would gone. If I wanted the technician to come to my house there was a delay of two weeks.

However, I had another appointment that day and so had to cancel that time and apologise. So, my phone call to that person also changed their day too.

In Weick’s first book (The Social Psychology of Organizing) he uses a nice semiotic (p.15) to convey the way thrownness works and it has a knock-on effect. Life is full of by-products and trade-offs and much like Sliding Doors, we often don’t know what our trade-off or by-product has caused.

Phenomenology has a focus on the nature of ‘being’ (https://www.drghazi.net/media/drghazi/365.pdf; https://web.english.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Husserl_Idea_of_Phenomenology.pdf). The leading philosophers of Phenomenology are: Merleau-Ponty, Husserl and Heidegger. You can read more on Phenomenology here: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1180603.pdf

The use of language is critical in thinking about risk. Whilst Safety is attracted to the notion of ‘drift’ in SPoR, we have no interest in such language. Such language fosters a way of thinking that is unhelpful for considering how life and being function.

When the rock hit my windscreen, did I ‘drift’ into failure? How do fallible people and fallible organisations ‘drift’ into failure when every aspect of fallibility offers the opportunity of error and failure? Fallibility realised is not ‘drift’ into failure. It all depends on your worldview.

In ‘thrownness’ we have a much better idea of what we get ‘thrown’ into. An in life, its unpredictable, uncertain, paradoxical and volatile (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-investigations-are-they-vuca-bani-or-wicked/).

Weick lists six properties of thrownness that should be considered carefully by Safety.

If Safety, considered these six properties or Weick’s seven properties of organisational sensemaking, most of the silly semiotics and propositions of safety, like drift, would disappear.

You have to ask: ‘why does Safety love drift? (https://safetyrisk.net/the-road-less-travelled-and-the-myth-of-drift/) Why does Safety love the language of ‘performance’? The attraction to both words enables judgement and measurement (traditional safety). No wonder Safety loves HOP.

When we come to terms with ‘thrownness’ we move on to living by Everyday Social Resilience (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/everyday-social-resilience-being-in-risk/). Resilience is NOT about bouncing back but how we move forward. Resilience is NOT about ‘harden up’ but about adaptability or, as Weick says ‘bricolage’. Weick states (p.181)

 I phrase my intention this way because there is a strong element of improvisation, bricolage, making do, and resourcefulness associated with any act of sense-making that works. That being the case, I am understandably wary of recipes and routines that could undermine the very things that make narratives, plausibility, and conversations work.

So, forget drift and focus on Everyday Social Resilience. As Weick states: beware of recipes and routines that limit adaptability.